Wholesale platform for pre-order, stock and collection material

The client

The European arm of a global sportswear brand, with a wholesale network spread across several countries. The company had just adopted Microsoft Dynamics as its ERP, and the B2B channel for wholesale clients had to be built on that base - while the base itself was coming into service.

The context

There was no process here to repair: there was an ERP that had just arrived and a season that was coming anyway. Integrating a management system while it is being adopted is harder than integrating a settled one - the data model moves, some decisions have not been taken yet - and waiting for it to hold still would have meant arriving a campaign late. We ran the project alongside the rollout, with a single delivery objective: get into production as soon as possible.

The objective

Give wholesale clients a channel where they can order, look through the material for their own collection and download their own documents - without waiting for the ERP rollout to finish.

• Build on top of a management system still being adopted, with a data model still in motion.
• Two ways of ordering to hold together: pre-order on the collection still to be produced, and stock orders on what is already in the warehouse.
• Items in carryover across several seasons, with prices that can change from one season to the next.
• Every client may see and buy only part of the collection: assortment, price lists and material have to be filtered accordingly.

The solution

We designed and built a bespoke wholesale platform synced with Microsoft Dynamics: items, price lists, stock and customer records come from the data lake the ERP exposes them on, and orders are written back through the APIs. The platform went into production shortly after the ERP, following its rollout in parallel rather than waiting for the end of it.

• Two order types in the same interface: pre-order on next season’s collection and stock orders on what is already there.
• Carryover and multi-season price lists: the same item can live across several seasons at different prices, and the platform knows which one to apply.
• A size and colour grid for entry, with per-row, per-column and overall totals updating as you type.
• PDF catalogues and ZIP image archives generated on the fly from the individual client’s collection: no item visible to anyone who cannot buy it.
• A download area for invoices, order confirmations and documents, available without asking anyone.
• Excel export and import with product images in the rows - because that is how those files actually get read.
• Dedicated collection landing pages, presenting the season’s themes inside the same tool used to order.
• Per-role permissions, reporting and an interface that works on mobile.

The results

In production shortly after the ERP

The platform followed the Dynamics rollout in parallel rather than waiting for it to end: the B2B channel was ready for the next campaign, not the one after.

Two ways of ordering, one interface

Pre-order and stock orders live in the same platform, each with its own rules and its own availability.

Carryover and multi-season price lists

The same item crosses several seasons at different prices, and the right list is applied with no manual intervention.

Every client sees only theirs

Assortment, price lists and material are filtered on the assigned collection: no item shown to anyone who cannot buy it.

Material and documents on their own

Catalogues and image archives are generated on the fly from the client’s collection; invoices and order confirmations are downloaded from the platform.